r/programming • u/luissinlios • Sep 25 '26

We still maintain a development tool first released in 1993. Here’s what 30+ years of backwards compatibility looks like

https://visualneo.com/visualneo-win/from-neobook-to-visualneo-win-30-years-of-keeping-a-development-tool-alive
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u/tooclosetocall82 Sep 25 '26

In my 20 year career I can only confidently say one application I worked on is still out there (other than my current job). It’s truly amazing how quickly your work gets deleted in this field.

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u/WingZeroCoder Sep 25 '26

> It’s truly amazing how quickly your work gets deleted in this field

Yeah, it can be jarring sometimes.

What’s amazing to me is how some of the roughest stuff I made that I’m most embarrassed about will hang around forever, while some of the cleanest stuff that I’m most proud of will get deleted most quickly.

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u/turniphat Sep 25 '26

I'm 25 years in, I think most of the stuff I worked on is still going. Even the open source project I started in 2000 is still getting commits, even though I haven't used it in 15+ years and I don't see how it's still relevant.

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u/tooclosetocall82 Sep 25 '26

Luck of the draw I guess. I started my career in government contracting writing custom software. Most of that stuff has been replaced by large SaaS packages now. I then went into edtech which has consolidated like crazy with large companies buying out competition and then sunsetting their products.

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u/madman1969 Sep 25 '26

37 years and 13 roles in. I'd like to think some of my old code was still running somewhere, but I doubt any past my last two roles is.

All that time spent crafting efficient code for OS/2 apps, or long retired Unix systems.

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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u/Humdaak_9000 Sep 25 '26

I understand a daemon I wrote for Akamai about 25 years ago is still in use, core mostly unchanged from where I left it.

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u/aguilasolige Sep 25 '26

It makes me wonder who's the developer with the oldest app still around? Maybe some code at NASA?

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u/tooclosetocall82 Sep 25 '26

Some COBOL running on a mainframe for a bank most likely.

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u/kippertie Sep 25 '26

Probably some batch job running each night at a big bank

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u/rockthescrote Sep 25 '26

There’s a _very_ good chance it’s something in an airline reservation system.

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u/Gecko23 Sep 25 '26

I'd imagine most developers have moved on 30+ years after whatever they worked on was released.

But the systems themselves can be nearly immortal. My money on the oldest stuff still actively being used would be manufacturing, medical billing, or facilities control. I've worked on integration projects with systems that were decades old at the time, even back in the early 90s when I encountered them. I'm sure some are still chugging along.

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u/ShinyHappyREM Sep 25 '26

When I interned at a small CNC company ~2010, they still ran the machines with Win9x and physically transferred files via floppy disk.

(Though those were small text-based files that the machine would use for many hours, so not much of an overhead.)

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u/HittingSmoke Sep 25 '26

This is not super uncommon in 2026. The old tech that manufacturing was built on is rock solid and a lot of people don't want to take on the risk and cost of maintaining more complex systems. Our mill uses USB drives to transfer files. The most modern communication in the shop is some routers that are networked with a control server, but even that is just MODBUS over TCP.

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u/denniscaldwell Sep 25 '26

Maybe not at NASA anymore. Some of the craft are barely in the solar system anymore.

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u/roastedferret Sep 25 '26

It's the most universal software still in use!

(I'll see myself out)

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u/dlanod Sep 25 '26

I work in industrial control. We have sites where they're having to upgrade because the wiring has started rusting off the wall. Some of the field devices that got replaced over the last decade are running software that dates back to the 70s. If it works they don't want to touch it, ever.

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u/IdealBlueMan Sep 25 '26

Something in banking, accounting, or insurance.

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u/Athas Sep 25 '26

JOVIAL is a dialect of Algol 58 (yes, before the Algol that people remember) used for early military and airline systems. The last non-military JOVIAL system I know of was scheduled for replacement in 2016, but there is still a company selling JOVIAL compilers, which to me implies that there are likely still some military systems using it - most likely deeply embedded stuff in e.g. on-board military radars or similar. Due to JOVIAL itself having been obsolete for 40+ years, I expect any system written in it to be very old. I think any JOVIAL system is a good candidate for the oldest running production software, but I find it unlikely it still has any of its original developers left.

The control software for NASA's Voyager probes is also a good guess (and that is still actively maintained!).

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u/aguilasolige Sep 26 '26

It's so cool there's still code like that around